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Bernie or Edgar? Topic

Posted by burnsy483 on 12/6/2013 10:04:00 AM (view original):Martinez had 653 plate appearances where the count was 3-0. Bernie had 614. Bernie also had more plate appearances for his career than Edgar, so Edgar had a higher percentage of 3-0 counts than Bernie did.

So he didn't swing at balls? Maybe I've said he had a very good eye. Superior to Williams. Yeah, I think I did.

Yeah, I can view the same stats as you. His walk percentage rose with better hitters in the line-up. That makes no sense from a practical standpoint. "Let's pitch around Martinez and we'll go after Griffey/A-Rod." Can you see coaches/catchers/pitchers saying that in a pre-game meeting?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 10:10:00 AM (view original):Yeah, I can view the same stats as you. His walk percentage rose with better hitters in the line-up. That makes no sense from a practical standpoint. "Let's pitch around Martinez and we'll go after Griffey/A-Rod." Can you see coaches/catchers/pitchers saying that in a pre-game meeting?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 10:10:00 AM (view original):Yeah, I can view the same stats as you. His walk percentage rose with better hitters in the line-up. That makes no sense from a practical standpoint. "Let's pitch around Martinez and we'll go after Griffey/A-Rod." Can you see coaches/catchers/pitchers saying that in a pre-game meeting?

Maybe Edgar wasn't getting pitched around at any point. Maybe he laid off of balls and crushed strikes when he got them. He was a similar hitter to Griffey and A-Rod in that time period in terms of slugging percentage. Less homers per atbat, but more singles and doubles to make up the gap.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 10:10:00 AM (view original):Yeah, I can view the same stats as you. His walk percentage rose with better hitters in the line-up. That makes no sense from a practical standpoint. "Let's pitch around Martinez and we'll go after Griffey/A-Rod." Can you see coaches/catchers/pitchers saying that in a pre-game meeting?

Maybe the ability to walk is a hitter's skill?

The ability to not swing at balls is a hitter's skill. Are you telling me that pitcher's were unable to throw strikes when the GREAT Edgar Martinez approached the plate?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 10:10:00 AM (view original):Yeah, I can view the same stats as you. His walk percentage rose with better hitters in the line-up. That makes no sense from a practical standpoint. "Let's pitch around Martinez and we'll go after Griffey/A-Rod." Can you see coaches/catchers/pitchers saying that in a pre-game meeting?

Maybe the ability to walk is a hitter's skill?

The ability to not swing at balls is a hitter's skill. Are you telling me that pitcher's were unable to throw strikes when the GREAT Edgar Martinez approached the plate?

I'm saying that pitchers usually try to make hitters swing at balls off the plate. A great hitter like Martinez lets those close pitches go by and crushes the ones in the strike zone.

You clowns act like I'm saying EM sucked. He didn't. He was very effective at the plate. Just not as effective as you think.

Per PA rate: Whiffs 13.9% of the time. Walks 14.8%. Pretty good but Bernie whiffed less(13.4%) and walked less(11.8%).
When EM didn't walk, he whiffed 16.7% of the time as compared to BW's 15.4%.

IOW, BW was better at making contact with the ball.

To be honest, I looked this up to say "Maybe EM was so confident in his ability to make contact, he'd take one/two strikes with regularity." If that was the case, he should have been less confident than BW.

At the end of the day, he was GREAT at taking a walk. And a very good hitter(just like Bernie).

Using our leaderboards, I pulled a list of every season in history where a player had accumulated a minimum of 500 plate appearances and posted a wRC+ (a slightly more accurate version of measuring offense than OPS+, the metric Fletcher used for his list, since wRC+ corrects for the relative value of OBP and SLG) of 150 or better. Essentially, this is a list of players who hit 50 percent better than the league average (adjusting for park effects and the average offensive level for that season) in something close to a full year’s worth of playing time. In the history of the sport, there have been 937 such seasons, so as you can see, it’s not an easy feat to accomplish.

Here’s the list of players who had at least eight seasons with 500 plate appearances and a wRC+ of 150:

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/6/2013 10:52:00 AM (view original):You clowns act like I'm saying EM sucked. He didn't. He was very effective at the plate. Just not as effective as you think.

Per PA rate: Whiffs 13.9% of the time. Walks 14.8%. Pretty good but Bernie whiffed less(13.4%) and walked less(11.8%).
When EM didn't walk, he whiffed 16.7% of the time as compared to BW's 15.4%.

IOW, BW was better at making contact with the ball.

To be honest, I looked this up to say "Maybe EM was so confident in his ability to make contact, he'd take one/two strikes with regularity." If that was the case, he should have been less confident than BW.

At the end of the day, he was GREAT at taking a walk. And a very good hitter(just like Bernie).

So we're playing the "when he didn't walk" game now? You're now ok with that. Because all but K% shows Edgar was a much better hitter.